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Sentimental Value and Gift Giving: Givers’ Fears of Getting It Wrong Prevents Them from Getting It Right

Authors: Julian Givi and Jeff Galak

Scientific Abstract

Sentimental value is the value derived from an emotionally laden item's associations with significant others, or special events or times in one's life. The present research demonstrates that when faced with the choice between sentimentally valuable gifts and gifts with superficial attributes that match the preferences of the recipient, givers give the latter much more often than recipients would prefer to receive such gifts. This asymmetry appears to be driven by givers feeling relatively certain that preference-matching gifts will be well-liked by recipients, but relatively uncertain that the same is true for sentimentally valuable gifts. Three studies demonstrate this gift-giving mismatch and validate the proposed mechanism across a variety of gift giving occasions and giver-receiver relationship types. The contribution of these findings to the gift-giving literature, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.

Layperson’s Abstract

In this research, we investigated givers’ and recipients’ views of two types of gifts: 1) Sentimentally valuable gifts, which are gifts that serve as reminders of significant others, or special events or times in a recipient’s life; and 2) Preference-matching gifts, which are gifts with superficial qualities that match a recipient’s tastes. Specifically, we wanted to know if when faced with the decision of whether to give a sentimentally valuable gift or a preference-matching gift, whether givers give sentimentally valuable gifts as often as recipients want to receive them. We ran four studies that attempted to answer this question and provide insight into the minds of givers and recipients.

First, we ran a pilot study which served to demonstrate the robustness of the sentimental value vs. preference-matching tradeoff. This study attempted to show that givers must often decide whether to go with a sentimentally valuable gift or a preference-matching gift. Participants indicated both how often they felt they had to make the sentimental vs. preference-matching tradeoff when gift giving, and how often they felt they had to make other tradeoffs previously documented in the gift giving literature. We found that the sentimental vs. preference-matching tradeoff is one of the most frequently-confronted gift giving tradeoffs, and is more-common than many of the previously-documented gift giving tradeoffs.

Next, we ran Study 1 which served as an initial test of whether givers give sentimentally valuable gifts as often as recipients want to receive them. Some participants imagined they were choosing a gift for a friend and had narrowed their choice down to two gifts (a sentimentally valuable gift and a preference-matching gift), and then indicated which gift they would give, while others imagined a friend was choosing a gift for them and had narrowed their choice down to the same two gifts, and then indicated which gift they would prefer to receive. We found that givers gave the preference-matching gift much more often than recipients preferred to receive it, or in other words, that givers did not give the sentimentally valuable gift as often as recipients would have liked. Further, this result held across a variety of gift giving contexts, and for both close and distant friends.

Having demonstrated that givers do not give sentimentally valuable gifts as often as recipients would like, we next wanted to figure out why this is the case. We hypothesized that this may occur because givers feel relatively certain that preference-matching gifts (which, by definition, possess superficial attributes recipients are known to like), will be well-liked by recipients, but relatively uncertain that the same is true for sentimentally valuable gifts (which, do not possess these attributes). Therefore, in Study 2, we primed some givers to feel positively about risk-taking, and others to feel negatively about risk-taking, and then had them choose whether to give a sentimentally valuable or preference-matching gift. If givers avoid giving sentimentally valuable gifts because they are uncertain they will be well-liked by recipients, then when givers feel positively (vs. negatively) about risk-taking, they should be more likely to give sentimentally valuable gifts. Consistent with this thinking, we found that givers were indeed more likely to give the sentimentally valuable gift when they felt positively (vs. negatively) about risk-taking.

In our final study, Study 3, we wanted to again demonstrate that givers do not give sentimentally valuable gifts as often as recipients would like, except this time using real gifts. To that end, partners in a romantic couple completed a study in which real gifts were exchanged from one to the other. One member chose whether to give a sentimentally valuable gift or preference-matching gift, while the other indicated which gift they would prefer to receive. Once again, we found that the givers did not give the sentimentally valuable gift as often as recipients would have preferred.

Billions of dollars are spent on gifts across the globe each year, however our results suggest that much of this money is going to waste as givers are being overly-cautious and opting for preference-matching gifts when what recipients truly want are sentimentally valuable gifts. Our results suggest that if givers want their money to be better-spent, they should think twice the next time they give a gift and consider going with something sentimental.

Our results are of interest to anyone who engages in gift giving and any firms that help facilitate such exchanges. For gift givers, our research suggests that they should be giving far more sentimentally valuable gifts than they are currently doing so. For firms, our work suggests that any attempt to increase the sentimental value of a gift could result in it being far more attractive to recipients. More broadly, given that gift giving is a custom practiced across the globe, this likely means that our results will be relevant for, and interesting to, many different people.

We believe that our title, which was suggested by our wonder associate editor, David Wooten, sums up our thoughts the best: “Givers’ fears of getting it wrong prevents them from getting it right.”